Hanover Square North shopping center is Medalist’s lone local holding. (BizSense file)
With its stock price in the doldrums, a local publicly traded real estate firm is shopping itself around.
Medalist Diversified REIT, a downtown-based real estate investment trust that owns a portfolio of commercial properties throughout the mid-Atlantic, disclosed this month that it has established a special committee within its board of directors to “explore potential strategic alternatives focusing on maximizing stockholder value.”
It said those alternatives could include a sale of all or part of the company’s assets, a joint venture, restructuring, or other transactions.
The company has hired Jones Lang LaSalle Securities as its financial adviser in the process. Troutman Pepper is its legal counsel.
It said there is no formal timetable for the process.
Medalist CEO Tim Messier (Photo by Max Taylor. Courtesy Medalist)
Reached by phone last week, Medalist CEO Tim Messier said he would not comment beyond the March 10 press release, which was issued in conjunction with the company’s fourth quarter and year-end earnings.
The move comes as the firm’s stock, which trades on Nasdaq under the symbol MDRR, has closed below $1 per share on all but three trading days since May 2022. It closed Friday at $0.82 per share. Its market cap as of Friday afternoon was $14.5 million.
The company’s share price has declined 91 percent since its IPO in late 2018, when it began trading at above $9.
Its lagging price over the past 10 months resulted in a delisting warning, giving the company a certain amount of time to find ways to bring the share price back above $1 for at least 10 consecutive days or lose its listing on Nasdaq. It has until July 10 to reach that threshold or find some other solution.
MDRR was born out of Medalist Properties, a downtown private equity firm that transferred much of its real estate holdings into Medalist REIT upon its creation. Medalist Properties was founded in 2003 by Messier and Bill Elliott.
As of the end of 2022, SEC filings show that the REIT owns eight properties across Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. The properties are a mix of shopping centers and flex/industrial buildings, totaling around 850,000 square feet.
Its lone Richmond-area holding is Hanover Square North shopping center in Mechanicsville, which is anchored by retailers Marshalls and Old Navy.
Hanover Square North is anchored by Old Navy, Famous Footwear and other retailers. (BizSense file)
Five of the properties were 100 percent leased as of Dec. 31, while two others had occupancy above 90 percent and one was 80 percent occupied.
The firm had been in the hotel business, owning the Clemson Best Western in South Carolina and a Hampton Inn in Greensboro, North Carolina, but sold both assets in 2022 and 2021, respectively.
Its most recent acquisition was of the Salisbury Marketplace, a 79,000-square-foot retail property in Salisbury, North Carolina, which it bought last year. It paid $10 million for the center, which is anchored by Food Lion, Citi Trends and Family Dollar.
The firm’s notice of its pursuit of strategic alternatives was made in conjunction with the filing of its fourth-quarter and year-end 2022 earnings. It posted a loss for the year of $4.7 million on $11.09 million in revenue. That’s on top of a $4.3 million loss in 2021 on $11.4 million in revenue.
Hanover Square North shopping center is Medalist’s lone local holding. (BizSense file)
With its stock price in the doldrums, a local publicly traded real estate firm is shopping itself around.
Medalist Diversified REIT, a downtown-based real estate investment trust that owns a portfolio of commercial properties throughout the mid-Atlantic, disclosed this month that it has established a special committee within its board of directors to “explore potential strategic alternatives focusing on maximizing stockholder value.”
It said those alternatives could include a sale of all or part of the company’s assets, a joint venture, restructuring, or other transactions.
The company has hired Jones Lang LaSalle Securities as its financial adviser in the process. Troutman Pepper is its legal counsel.
It said there is no formal timetable for the process.
Medalist CEO Tim Messier (Photo by Max Taylor. Courtesy Medalist)
Reached by phone last week, Medalist CEO Tim Messier said he would not comment beyond the March 10 press release, which was issued in conjunction with the company’s fourth quarter and year-end earnings.
The move comes as the firm’s stock, which trades on Nasdaq under the symbol MDRR, has closed below $1 per share on all but three trading days since May 2022. It closed Friday at $0.82 per share. Its market cap as of Friday afternoon was $14.5 million.
The company’s share price has declined 91 percent since its IPO in late 2018, when it began trading at above $9.
Its lagging price over the past 10 months resulted in a delisting warning, giving the company a certain amount of time to find ways to bring the share price back above $1 for at least 10 consecutive days or lose its listing on Nasdaq. It has until July 10 to reach that threshold or find some other solution.
MDRR was born out of Medalist Properties, a downtown private equity firm that transferred much of its real estate holdings into Medalist REIT upon its creation. Medalist Properties was founded in 2003 by Messier and Bill Elliott.
As of the end of 2022, SEC filings show that the REIT owns eight properties across Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. The properties are a mix of shopping centers and flex/industrial buildings, totaling around 850,000 square feet.
Its lone Richmond-area holding is Hanover Square North shopping center in Mechanicsville, which is anchored by retailers Marshalls and Old Navy.
Hanover Square North is anchored by Old Navy, Famous Footwear and other retailers. (BizSense file)
Five of the properties were 100 percent leased as of Dec. 31, while two others had occupancy above 90 percent and one was 80 percent occupied.
The firm had been in the hotel business, owning the Clemson Best Western in South Carolina and a Hampton Inn in Greensboro, North Carolina, but sold both assets in 2022 and 2021, respectively.
Its most recent acquisition was of the Salisbury Marketplace, a 79,000-square-foot retail property in Salisbury, North Carolina, which it bought last year. It paid $10 million for the center, which is anchored by Food Lion, Citi Trends and Family Dollar.
The firm’s notice of its pursuit of strategic alternatives was made in conjunction with the filing of its fourth-quarter and year-end 2022 earnings. It posted a loss for the year of $4.7 million on $11.09 million in revenue. That’s on top of a $4.3 million loss in 2021 on $11.4 million in revenue.